Universal Project Research Articles

Beyond the Heaven–Hell Binary and the One‐Way Traffic Paradigm: The European Union, Africa and Contested Human Rights in the Negotiations of the Samoa Agreement

AbstractThis article, drawing on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) and embracing the decentring agenda in European Union (EU) external relations, discusses the substance of human rights promotion in the negotiations of the Samoa Agreement. It documents how the EU has concentrated on civil and political rights, whereas Africa has advanced an innovative approach to economic, social and cultural rights underpinned by the right to development. More importantly, going beyond the ‘heaven–hell binary’, which draws neat lines between the good North and the bad South, and the ‘one‐way traffic paradigm’, which claims that human rights flow from the North to the South, it shows that the human rights corpus may be slowly evolving from its paradigmatic western orientation towards a truly universal project: the EU and Africa have started recognising each other as being holders of diverse yet legitimate perspectives on human rights.

Модель управления трансграничными проектами в строительстве на базе сквозной оценки проектных рисков

The article aims to determine the requirements for a new conceptual model of project management, which allows for the systematic implementation of artificial intelligence technologies to prepare and make management decisions at the accelerated pace of industry development, and to design the model. The methodological basis for the study was the theory of portfolio management and the systems approach to management. Working methods are narrative analysis and system synthesis in order to overcome the main problems that reduce management efficiency. As a result, a system of integration control buses in management has been proposed, introducing end-to-end hierarchy and relational interconnection of project indicators at all stages of the life cycle using digital scenario modeling techniques and allowing to organize the presented system model of project management. The mechanism for monitoring and controlling project risks when managing integrated systems and elements is shown, including the use of a universal project control tool for organizing external digital control using a methodology for identifying and assessing project risks, expressed in target assessment indicators, analyzed by creating a digital twin of the object. A model for managing the multidimensionality of design tasks based on the integrated use of neural networks is described. The potential for the development of a business ecosystem for project management is shown to make it possible to make predictive value-oriented management decisions taking into account risk management. The theoretical results of designing a system model of project management can be used as technical specifications for creating a software product for the management of various areas of project management. Keywords: system model of project management, risk management, end-to-end management bus, development project management, cross-border construction, information modeling technologies, neural networks.

Ambiguity, Contingency, and Dominance: Decolonizing Theories of Modernity

Abstract Focusing on the work of Johann P. Arnason and Peter Wagner, this article examines in its first part recent sociological, non-linear and contingency-sensitive ways of engagement with modernity, which refer to different levels of socio-historical configuration (civilization analysis vs. world sociology) and attribute different significance to normative questions. While both authors acknowledge the entanglement of European and non-European cultural worlds as well as its power dynamics, they still fail to fully grasp and theorize the devastating role of colonialism, which today is still felt in the marginalisation and even erasure of knowledge, perspectives, ideas and experiences from the ‘non-West’. Their approaches also lack a serious engagement with post- and decolonial scholarship. The second part of this contribution presents decolonial thinking as a theoretical and normative-political project. Theorising modernity from ‘beyond’ invites us to ‘break the Western code’ (Mignolo) and engage with modernity from a perspective that is grounded in different epistemologies, philosophies and social imaginaries, ultimately questioning autonomy and mastery (over humans and nature) as basic premises or axioms of Western modernity. As a normative-political project decoloniality is future-oriented and, focusing on the temporally, spatially and socially contextualized acting subjects and collectives, aims to rebuild a polycentric world and establishes ‘pluriversality as a universal project’ (Mignolo). The Zapatista movement in Chiapas (Mexico), representing a new understanding of the revolutionary subject and the revolutionary praxis, illustrates how indigenous groups and (urban) Marxists can come together as equals, learn from each other and negotiate how to change the world in discourse and practice.

Ambiguity, Contingency, and Dominance: Decolonizing Theories of Modernity

Abstract Focusing on the work of Johann P. Arnason and Peter Wagner, this article examines in its first part recent sociological, non-linear and contingency-sensitive ways of engagement with modernity, which refer to different levels of socio-historical configuration (civilization analysis vs. world sociology) and attribute different significance to normative questions. While both authors acknowledge the entanglement of European and non-European cultural worlds as well as its power dynamics, they still fail to fully grasp and theorize the devastating role of colonialism, which today is still felt in the marginalisation and even erasure of knowledge, perspectives, ideas and experiences from the ‘non-West’. Their approaches also lack a serious engagement with post- and decolonial scholarship. The second part of this contribution presents decolonial thinking as a theoretical and normative-political project. Theorising modernity from ‘beyond’ invites us to ‘break the Western code’ (Mignolo) and engage with modernity from a perspective that is grounded in different epistemologies, philosophies and social imaginaries, ultimately questioning autonomy and mastery (over humans and nature) as basic premises or axioms of Western modernity. As a normative-political project decoloniality is future-oriented and, focusing on the temporally, spatially and socially contextualized acting subjects and collectives, aims to rebuild a polycentric world and establishes ‘pluriversality as a universal project’ (Mignolo). The Zapatista movement in Chiapas (Mexico), representing a new understanding of the revolutionary subject and the revolutionary praxis, illustrates how indigenous groups and (urban) Marxists can come together as equals, learn from each other and negotiate how to change the world in discourse and practice.

Veto Institutions, Hostage‐Taking, and Tacit Cooperation

AbstractWe analyze the effects of veto institutions in a dynamic model where control of the legislative and executive branches fluctuates between two parties. In our setting, there are universal projects (benefiting both parties) and partisan projects (benefiting one party at the expense of the other). When government is divided, the legislature can leverage the universal project to achieve a lopsided and dynamically inefficient distribution of partisan projects under the absolute veto. While the line‐item veto eliminates this type of hostage‐taking, it also prevents beneficial logrolls. A novel institution, the alternating line‐item veto, can both eliminate hostage‐taking and preserve beneficial interparty logrolls. No veto institution prevents dynamically inefficient, lopsided outcomes under unified government; this can only be done through norms, and we show that a no‐veto regime, or a regime with a line‐item veto, best facilitates such a cooperative norm.

El aborto no es un derecho constitucional. Una sentencia histórica del Tribunal Supremo De Estados Unidos

The Supreme Court of the United States issued on June 24, 2022, a historic ruling in the Dobbs case, relating to the right to life and especially, to the issue of abortion. The majority opinion of five of the judges -against three who expressed their dissent and a differentiated opinion of Chief Justice Roberts- overruled the pronouncements of the Roe (1973) and Casey (1992) cases, which for almost half a century made it possible to consider that there was a constitutional right to abortion under the federal Constitution. The majority proved the non-existence of a supposed constitutional right to abortion and set new standards in the matter. It also returned to the People the decision on an issue of maximum moral and ethical relevance. The commented sentence works especially on the issue of implicit constitutional rights and has practically universal projection.

Sound experts’ perspectives on astronomy sonification projects

The Audible Universe project aims at making dialogue between two scientific domains investigating two distinct research objects, briefly said, Stars and Sound. It has been instantiated within a collaborative workshop that started to mutually acculturate both communities, by sharing and transmitting respective knowledge, skills and practices. One main outcome of this exchange was a global view on the astronomical data sonification paradigm that allowed to observe either the diversity of tools, uses and users (including visually-impaired people), but also the current limitations and potential ways of improvement. From this perspective, the current paper presents basic elements gathered and contextualised by sound experts in their respective fields (sound perception / cognition, sound design, psychoacoustics, experimental psychology), in order to anchor sonification for astronomy in a more well-informed, methodological and creative process.

Identification of the Barriers and Key Success Factors for Renewable Energy Public-Private Partnership Projects: A Continental Analysis

The global energy demand has been increasing and posing multiple challenges across the globe, including global warming, environmental pollution, and energy-sustainability issues. Thus, multiple countries have been adopting renewable-energy (RE) sources to provide clean, reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy. Previously, a number of renewable energy projects has been delivered in the form of a public–private partnership (PPP) to take advantage of the private sector’s investment, technology advancements, and expertise. In general, renewable-energy projects are considered large-scale universal projects that involve expertise from different countries and require a clear understanding of the barriers and key success factors (KSFs) across the globe. Thus, this paper focuses on providing a comprehensive understanding of the main barriers and success factors of renewable-energy projects across the globe. For that aim, a comprehensive literature review was first carried out to identify and report on the barriers and KSFs of renewable-energy projects. This was followed by a questionnaire survey wherein the opinions of 60 experts with wide experience in RE PPPs in multiple countries were collected and analyzed. The analysis shows that political and regulatory barriers are the main risks globally. Additionally, well-prepared contract documentations and skilled and efficient parties are the KSFs. However, these factors change from one continent to another. Additionally, this paper sheds light on the difference between the public and private sectors’ perceptions on the severity of the risks and the importance of the KSFs to each sector.

Redefining Operations Reporting Codes Helps Support Digitalization of Well Operations

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 208711, “Redefining Operations Reporting Codes to Support Digitalization of Well Operations,” by Theresa Baumgartner, SPE, Marcus Ridgway, SPE, and Cameron Bruce, SPE, Shell, et al. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Under increasingly volatile market conditions, operators face pressure to increase performance and reduce costs through standardization of engineering, operations, services, and equipment. To this end, an operator has redefined the way it reports onsite operations through the development of a standardized set of reporting activity codes, designed as the backbone of a standardized and digital well-design and -execution process. The operator recognizes the value of industrywide standardization of fit-for-purpose operations codes and offers to donate the codes to the Open Subsurface Data Universe (OSDU) project. Background of Activity Codes The use of operations codes (also referred to as activity or reporting codes) to classify detailed well-activity descriptions has been prevalent in the oil and gas industry since the introduction of commercial daily-well-operations-reporting software systems in the 1980s and ’90s. A limitation of many activity code sets was that they were focused on drilling operations and were light on completions and, especially, well-intervention activities. Today’s well-engineering teams are focused on optimizing all well-operation types, not only drilling operations. Activity-code sets support a range of coding levels, from simple single-level activity code systems to several hierarchical levels of activity codes, such as the code set the authors propose in this paper. The number of levels is determined based on operator or contractor requirements for tracking operations, regulatory reporting, and performance measurement or optimization requirements.

METHODICAL PRINCIPLES OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE INSTRUMENTATION OF THE INNOVATIVE CULTURE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT

Abstract. The article materials are accented to the identification of the concept of the innovative culture of personnel management and the possibility of implementing universal project management methods in its formation. The urgency of the research is determined, first of all, by the need for a constant dynamic correction of techniques and instrument management personnel in order to build an innovative culture of personnel management at domestic enterprises. When writing, analytical and statistical methods are used during the detection and processing of domestic and foreign statistical data, the method of expert assessments in the formation of structural models, historical and logical methods in the extrapolation of the state of the past years for the future. The article materials emphasize the definition and characteristics of the concept of «Innovative Culture of Personnel Management». It is determined that the practical implementation of the instrument of the personnel management of the enterprise needs to use innovative techniques. Among these techniques, it is crucial to underscore Gantt charts, the Dupon method and Game Theory, personal marketing management, and others. Particular attention is focused on a graphical display of a Gantt chart, which reflects the time interval from the time of decision-making on the introduction of innovative methods in managing personnel to increase labor productivity and the growth of other enterprise performance indicators. It is noted that when making decisions on the expediency of changing the existing personnel management culture at the enterprise, it is worth using neural network models based on which it is possible to reveal a causal relationship between the decision and the reaction of the entire organizational system or a separate personality. It is detected that one of the main methods of investigation of the probable results from the introduction of an innovative culture of personnel management at the enterprise is to identify strengths and weaknesses in the process of implementing changes. The study of the LIFT methodological approach that uses the tools of ballroom assessments of the groups of attractiveness indicators of decisions on introducing an innovative personnel management culture and indicators that determine their risks are distinguished. The probability and expediency of using GAP analysis for the comparative characteristics of actual and potential development opportunities are researched and analyzed. It is stated that the use of this information will distinguish at the expertise stage the possibility of practical implementation of an innovative culture tool in full or fragmented scope to determine the means and techniques that will give the greatest effect to develop the intellectual and labor potential of the enterprise. It is proposed to use GAP analysis when implementing an innovative personnel management culture for the restoration strategy and maintaining employees’ mental health, forcing the enterprise’s loyalty system, introducing the foundations of corporate and organizational culture of the enterprise. Keywords: personnel management, innovative culture of personnel management, mental health, personnel loyalty, corporate culture. JEL Classification М12 Formulas: 5; fig.: 3; tabl.: 0; bibl.: 22.

Review: Greater American Camera: Making Modernism in Mexico, by Monica Bravo

Review: <i>Greater American Camera: Making Modernism in Mexico</i>, by Monica Bravo

Tri modela za uređenje ustavnih poredaka

The article explores constitutional transitions from the viewpoint of three explanatory and ordering paradigms proposed by the author. These are Westphalian constitutionalism, post-Westphalian constitutionalism and neo-Westphalian constitutionalism. The analysis focusses on the crisis of the two main paradigms of Westphalian Modernity - the territoriality of power and the hierarchy having projections on constitutional supremacy and political sovereignty. It explores how these two main forms of Westphalian constitutional geometry are challenged by globalism and neo-regionalism. The paper revolves around the metamorphoses of the pillars of constitutionalism in the context of globalization, as a holistic and universal project that has been unfolding in recent decades, and the current trends toward redefining globalization in terms of global regionalism and post-territorial technocratic governance.

METHODS OF PROJECT-VECTOR MANAGEMENT OF EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS

Based on the developed mathematical model of the project-vector space, the methods of determining the endpoints of the objects of the project-vector space (PVS) and the calculation of the trajectory of the movement to these points are proposed. It is shown that the problem of developing these methods is related to the definition of such projects (project integration), which will correspond to the maximum expansion of “Universal Projects” educational environment. Calculation of the trajectory of the movement in the project-vector space ensures the achievement of the objectives of the project with minimal time and financial resources. It is proposed to use the Monte Carlo method to calculate the options for the trajectory of PVS subjects. This distribution of probabilities when choosing the displacement of objects and subjects of PVS corresponds to the priority of subjects and the impact of objects on the displacement of these subjects. For the assessment of the magnitude of the impact on the movement of PVS subjects it was developed the structure of the expert table and the model of the calculation of the average expert assessment of such an impact. Implementation of the given methods will allow to dynamically evaluate the most important goals for all interested parties of the project, as well as to develop ways to achieve them in real terms. In this case, the real conditions of the projects are described in the system of impact on the movement of objects and subjects of PVS in the expanding “Universal Projects”.

Pericentric passage-driven star formation in satellite galaxies and their hosts: CLUES from local group simulations

ABSTRACT Local Group satellite galaxies show a wide diversity of star formation histories (SFHs) whose origin is yet to be fully understood. Using hydrodynamical simulations from the Constrained Local UniversE project, we study the SFHs of satellites of Milky Way-like galaxies in a cosmological context: while in the majority of the cases the accretion on to their host galaxy causes the satellites to lose their gas, with a subsequent suppression in SF, in about 25 per cent of our sample we observe a clear enhancement of SF after infall. Peaks in SF clearly correlate with the satellite pericentric passage around its host and, in one case, with a satellite–satellite interaction. We identify two key ingredients that result in enhanced SF after infall: galaxies must enter the host’s virial radius with a reservoir of cold gas Mgas, inf/Mvir, inf ≳ 10−2 and with a minimum pericentric distance ≳10 kpc (mean distance ∼50 kpc for the full sample), in order to form new stars due to compression of cold gas at pericentric passage. On the other hand, satellites that infall with little gas or whose pericentric distance is too small, have their gas ram-pressure stripped and subsequent SF quenched. The pericentric passage of satellites likewise correlates with SF peaks in their hosts, suggesting that this mechanism induces bursts of SF in satellites and central galaxies alike, in agreement with recent studies of our Galaxy’s SFH. Our findings can explain the recently reported multiple stellar populations observed in dwarf galaxies such as Carina and Fornax, and should be taken into account in semi-analytic models of galaxy formation and satellite quenching.

Validation of an Online Version of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) for Alcohol Screening in Spanish University Students.

Online alcohol screening may be helpful in preventing alcohol use disorders. We assessed psychometric properties of an online version of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) among Spanish university students. We used a longitudinal online survey (the UNIVERSAL project) of first-year students (18–24 years old) in five universities, including the AUDIT, as part of the WHO World Mental Health International College Student (WMH-ICS) initiative. A reappraisal interview was carried out with the Timeline Followback (TLFB) for alcohol consumption categories and the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) for alcohol use disorder. Reliability, construct validity and diagnostic accuracy were assessed. Results: 287 students (75% women) completed the MINI, of whom 242 also completed the TLFB. AUDIT’s Cronbach’s alpha was 0.82. The confirmatory factor analysis for the one-factor solution of the AUDIT showed a good fit to the data. Significant AUDIT score differences were observed by TLFB categories and by MINI disorders. Areas under the curve (AUC) were very large for dependence (AUC = 0.96) and adequate for consumption categories (AUC > 0.7). AUDIT cut-off points of 6/8 (women/men) for moderate-risk drinking and 13 for alcohol dependence showed sensitivity/specificity of 76.2%/78.9% and 56%/97.5%, respectively. The online version of the AUDIT is useful for detecting alcohol consumption categories and alcohol dependence in Spanish university students.

Liberal peace: from civilising mission to self-doubt

ABSTRACT Focusing on post-Cold War international interventions, this article traces the emergence of a malaise within the liberal universal project. While it is agreed that the liberal peace is in crisis, there is disagreement on the nature of the impasse. For mainstream IR scholars, there is a resistance by actors in the Global South to follow the policy dictates of powerful Western governments and the international organisations they dominate. While this is certainly the case, this article argues that the crisis of the liberal peace is also rooted in the erosion of liberal universal foundations. In addition to liberal norms being rejected by Southern actors, the liberal peace crisis reflects a deeper scepticism on the part of international policy elites regarding the ability of liberal market democracy to resolve a wide range of social, political and economic problems. In addition to being a crisis of legitimacy between the Global North and the Global South, there seems to exist an erosion of liberal universal foundations which is undermining the ability of international policy elites to act purposively in global affairs. This argument is drawn out with reference to post-liberal approaches to peacebuilding which foreground the radical potential of non-liberal forms of agency.

Global Collaborative Social Network (Share4Rare) to Promote Citizen Science in Rare Disease Research: Platform Development Study.

BackgroundRare disease communities are spread around the globe and segmented by their condition. Little research has been performed on the majority of rare diseases. Most patients who are affected by a rare disease have no research on their condition because of a lack of knowledge due to absence of common groups in the research community.ObjectiveWe aimed to develop a safe and secure community of rare disease patients, without geographic or language barriers, to promote research.MethodsCocreation design methodology was applied to build Share4Rare, with consultation and input through workshops from a variety of stakeholders (patients, caregivers, clinicians, and researchers).ResultsThe workshops allowed us to develop a layered version of the platform based on educating patients and caregivers with publicly accessible information, a secure community for the patients and caregivers, and a research section with the purpose of collecting patient information for analysis, which was the core and final value of the platform.ConclusionsRare disease research requires global collaboration in which patients and caregivers have key roles. Collective intelligence methods implemented in digital platforms reduce geographic and language boundaries and involve patients in a unique and universal project. Their contributions are essential to increase the amount of scientific knowledge that experts have on rare diseases. Share4Rare has been designed as a global platform to facilitate the donation of clinical information to foster research that matters to patients with rare conditions. The codesign methods with patients have been essential to create a patient-centric design.

An Epistemic Bridge for Presupposition Projection in Questions

It is often assumed that presuppositions in wh-questions project universally. However, Schwarz &amp; Simonenko (2018) note examples of such questions where universal projection is absent. I discuss their account and propose an alternative: by reasoning about the pragmatics of question-answer discourse, I arrive at a version of Stalnaker's bridge principle that is sensitive to what the speaker already knows about the true answer to the question. This Epistemic Bridge predicts universal projection for canonical information-seeking questions, but less than universal projection for certain non-canonical question uses such as quiz questions.

О некоторых философских основаниях цивилизационного дискурса в современной России

The author of the article shares, on the whole, the conclusions reached by A.V. Smirnov. First, the West, with its claims to the universality of its own civilizational project and the policy of globalization, is not suitable for Russia. The latter cannot be the West due to the logic of the development of its culture (cultures). Russia expresses the universal in its own form and claims to be a universal project. Secondly, Russian philosophy, according to the speaker, is in many respects «secondary metaphysics» in relation to Western thought, using its methodology and conceptual apparatus. And yet she has a chance to turn towards her own project and formulate her agenda. Thirdly, since Russia cannot be the West, it means that it must be guided by its own reason, correlating it with the minds of other peoples and cultures. To expand the capabilities of the Russian mind, it is neces­sary to gradually overcome the colonial nature of the knowledge system, incl. philosophy, and initiate new projects and discourses. Fourthly, in Russia there are several large cul­tures and religions that arose in it from the very beginning and are united by a common historical destiny. It is possible to unite within the framework of a civilizational project only if there are integrative values, as well as a unifying idea (“all-humanity”) and a spe­cial way of the subject-predicate complex (for example, “all-subjectness”).

Prospects for the socio-economic development of a small urban settlement

The article is devoted to the design idea the concept of the universal project of socio-economic development of small urban settlement on the example of single-industry towns of the South of Russia, and highlighted relevant data problems of urban agglomerations, the ways of contributing to the solution, as the demographic situation and migration of the working population, creation of new jobs through attracting investors and foreign workers to solve problems such areas having a similar nature and roots throughout the territory of the Russian Federation. The work is a strategic vector of the concept for the socio-economic development of economically unprofitable territories of the Russian Federation based on the use of the TRIZ system operator. The concept of the project allows us to demonstrate the way of possible transformation of the economy of economically unprofitable regions. The paper formulates the goal of socio-economic development for a small urban settlement, forms the ways of strategic transformation, analyzes the current situation, identifies the main problems and suggests a possible vector for the development of the territory based on the development of production, infrastructure, the quality of the urban environment and the use of the climatic and cultural features of the region.